Decriminalise porn, make it a space that is consensual and pleasurable, says writer Richa Kaul Padte

Last month, the government directed internet service providers to block 827 pornographic websites following a high court order in September. Similar bans in 2013 and 2015 were reversed. In her recent book Cyber Sexy: Rethinking Pornography, Richa Kaul Padte argues for viewing the contentious issue through the lens of women’s consent. Sonam Joshi spoke to the author.

India is one of the biggest consumers of online porn, yet there are repeated attempts to censor it. What are the reasons behind these contradictory realities?

The more people have access to porn, the more the powers-that-be want to ban it. The broader the access to porn, the more the moral panic among the upper classes — one actually leads to the other. It comes down to the fact that we are uncomfortable with women’s sexuality. Porn that shows women as sexual beings threatens the existing power structure.

What are the problems with blocking or blacklisting porn websites?

The idea that we should ban porn because it leads people to sexual violence has so many problems. Why don’t we ban Bollywood instead, where every other story is about harassing women? We are making porn a soft target, and not looking at the lack of understanding around consent and the near-absence of sex education in India.

You’ve argued that consent should be central to the porn debate.

If we want to protect women’s rights, we need to look not only at their right to say no but also to say yes. Consent needs to be central to these conversations — they should not just be about morality but also pleasure. I would advocate scrapping the obscenity legislation. It doesn’t distinguish between sexy content that is consensual and non-consensual. If the government really wants to protect women, we need to get rid of the outdated legislation. We need laws that focus on consent and not morality.

How will the decriminalisation of porn benefit women?

This idea of decriminalisation gets sensationalised but there are many practical reasons for it. The obscenity legislation is being used to criminalise both consensual and non-consensual content. So there is no difference between a woman uploading her nudies on the internet and a guy doing it without her consent. With decriminalisation, we will be able to differentiate between the two. We don’t have a porn industry at the moment, and this means we only have amateur porn, and a lot of it ends up being non-consensual. We have no way to legally regulate these consent violations, which replicate the same power hierarchies that cause violence against women offline. If we decriminalise porn, we could make it a space that is consensual and pleasurable. We could have an actual porn industry, where women can make porn films.

The ban stems from the Uttarakhand HC order that unlimited access to porn websites needs to be curbed “to avoid an adverse influence on the impressionable minds of children”. Your interviews reveal the lack of sex education in schools. How can guardians approach the topic in a more realistic manner?

I did a survey of around 500 people in South Asia and found people do watch porn to fill a sex education gap. But this porn isn’t viewed in isolation from the rest of the internet, like sex educational websites. Most people didn’t have a sex education class in school, and those that did said they had a biology lesson on reproduction. Sex education should offer a safe space for young people to talk about what they’re feeling, and teach them about consent, which mainstream porn doesn’t foreground. It is not enough to just teach them what is bad touch.

Adults really need to get over their discomfort around sex and desire. They need to make young people feel it is okay if they like someone, that masturbation is okay. I’ve spoken to so many girls who thought it was not okay.

The belief that porn is bad for women cuts across the ideological spectrum. How does your research challenge this narrative of women as victims?

Women are not being included in the conversation as creators or as people who are experiencing pleasure while watching porn. Looking at women’s actual experiences of sexy content on the internet — ranging from webcams to streaming — challenges a dominant narrative that women can only be victims of sexual content. In addition, for people who have marginalised sexualities, such as those from the queer community or people with disabilities, desire can feel very lonely. Porn has been a very important space for people to actualise their desires online. Many people I spoke to lived in pockets of sexual isolation. A sexy internet can make you feel less alone.

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